Chapter 54: 53. The Concubine Nursing a Child

53、The Concubine Nursing a Child

The sky seemed much darker than before.

A chilling wind blew through the forest, making the tree branches rustle noisily.

In the shivering wind, mist rose faintly.

Bai Xiue's father hunched his shoulders, observing the surroundings; seeing that Zhou Chang was still staring at the suddenly appeared black stele, he couldn't help but ask, "What is written on this stele?"

In the empty darkness, Bai Xiue's father was startled by his own voice, his heart giving a thump.

He cautiously observed the surroundings, afraid that his sudden words would disturb the powerful ghosts and spirits lurking in the dark.

Zhou Chang read the sacrificial text on the stele several times; hearing Bai Xiue's father's question, he pondered for a moment and answered, "This stele says that indeed, a concubine from the late Qing Dynasty was buried in the Bai family graveyard.

However, that late Qing concubine was not buried alone.

A human head of the late Qing Emperor was also buried together with that concubine."

"A human head..."

Bai Xiue's father murmured softly; he looked at Bai Xiue beside him, then said quietly, "Once you mention the Emperor's human head, I actually remember something..."

The mountain wind passed quietly by the three of them.

Under the night sky, the Bai family graveyard grew colder, and Bai Xiue's father's low voice sounded like a candle flickering in the cold wind: "Xiue's grandfather... my late father-in-law, once worked for the Jing Bai clan, building walls for the Jing Bai ancestral hall on Gao Po.

One day, he worked until midnight before returning, and upon returning, he fell ill and never recovered, lying in a coma all day long.

It was only on the day of his death that he regained consciousness.

He told us that the reason he returned late that day was because it had grown pitch black, yet the Jing Bai clan still wouldn't feed them, ordering them to continue working. Starving and desperate, he climbed over the wall into the Jing Bai ancestral hall.

He thought to steal some of the offerings in their ancestral hall, but as soon as he touched his way in, he lost his bearings; following the doors one by one inside, he kept walking deeper until he finally reached the small ancestral hall in the innermost room.

He said there were no spirit tablets or offerings in the small ancestral hall; he only saw a woman wearing that kind of hat adorned with flowers, and that woman was holding an infant swaddled in a blanket, apparently nursing a child.

The woman sat on a high offering table, her body turned sideways to him, so he couldn't see what the child in the swaddle looked like.

The clothes the woman wore were no cheap goods; one could tell they were made of silk satin, embroidered with many festive flowers.

Yet judging by the sheen of the silk, it was clearly very old, a very worn garment, with many of the embroidered flowers faded.

Seeing him enter the door, the woman was not afraid; she was still nursing the child in the swaddle, only asking him a question without raising her head.

Xiue's grandfather said that the woman's voice sounded as if it were squeezed out of her throat, high-pitched and thin, but he strained his ears to listen carefully and could only grasp the general meaning of her words, unable to hear exactly what she said, only catching a few syllables.

She was probably asking Xiue's grandfather: 'What do you want?'

Xiue's grandfather felt the woman was strange and dared not answer her at all—who nurses a child on an offering table in an ancestral hall?

Moreover, the Jing Bai clan's multi-layered ancestral halls were themselves very strange.

So he hurriedly retreated from that small ancestral hall.

But who would have known—no sooner had he retreated from that small ancestral hall than the environment outside changed; in the blink of an eye, the outer ancestral hall had transformed into a tomb chamber built of large stone blocks!

In the center of the tomb chamber stood a bronze coffin.

The woman who had been nursing the child on the offering table was now sitting on the coffin lid.

This time she was not facing away from Xiue's grandfather; she was facing him directly, her faded silk dress looking just like the clothes of corpses dug up from old graves.

At this moment, she opened her robe, exposing half of her chest.

That half of her chest and abdomen was a bright yellow, the color of gold.

Inside the swaddle in her arms, an adult head wearing a melon-skin cap poked out, and that large head was nursing!

Inside that swaddle, there was only that adult man's head!

The milk that head sucked in was also like golden water, gradually dyeing the head's grayish-white skin into a golden hue!

The head in the woman's arms became as if cast in gold, but the woman's chest turned grayish-white; at the same time, Xiue's grandfather smelled a stench of rotting flesh drifting from that woman.

At this moment, he was so terrified he didn't even dare to run.

He only saw that woman holding the golden human head in the swaddle with one arm, while with her other hand she lifted a jade bowl from beside the coffin lid.

The jade bowl was filled with a liquid red with gold; she drank the liquid in one gulp, and immediately the stench of rotting flesh stopped emanating from her body, her chest gradually turned golden again, and the head in the swaddle leaned in once more.

Xiue's grandfather said that at the time, when he saw the woman drinking the liquid from the jade bowl, he heard many girls crying in his ears.

However, he had no time to think about anything; he only saw that after the woman drank the liquid from the bowl, her face became as red and vibrant as a flower, and she asked Xiue's grandfather again: 'What do you want?'

Her grandfather dared not answer the woman and hurriedly searched for the exit of this tomb chamber.

The woman did not stop him; she only sat on the coffin, constantly asking him what he wanted.

By the time he found the exit of the tomb chamber and leaned forward to crawl through, the woman, holding the swaddle, had somehow already stood behind him.

The woman said nothing; the human head in the swaddle poked out, and on that golden face, the eyes without eyeballs stared straight at Xiue's grandfather, while a thin, indistinct voice issued again from the woman's mouth: 'What do you want?'

'How about lending me your body for a while?'

The golden head in the swaddle opened and closed its mouth; every time it opened, Xiue's grandfather seemed to see rows of spirit tablets pressed beneath its tongue.

He did not recognize the characters on many of the spirit tablets; he only recognized the character 'Wen' on one spirit tablet in the corner..."

Bai Xiue's father's eyes flickered slightly; he sighed and said again, "After Xiue's grandfather saw that golden head, when he woke up again, he was already lying on the bed at home.

For several days afterward, he was in a daze, speaking many nonsense words, until finally, on a certain night, he passed away..."

Bai Xiue listened intently; she murmured to herself, "What her grandfather said back then, was it a dream, or did it really happen?"

She raised her face, looking toward the Jing Bai ancestral hall on the distant Gao Po.

The tall ancestral hall, its outer walls painted dark red, under the glow of countless red lanterns, grew redder, turning almost black.

It looked like a wound in the night, oozing gushing fresh blood.

Bai Xiue's heart gave a start; in a moment of distraction, where she had been gazing, neither that high slope nor the Jing Bai ancestral hall illuminated by the red lanterns was to be seen.

There was only a pitch-black expanse there.

Xiue quickly withdrew her gaze; she suddenly discovered that the black stele had also vanished right before her eyes.

Her father and Zhou Chang were still standing beside her.

Zhou Chang heard a rustling sound rise from the darkness.

It was the noise of someone walking with tiny steps, the friction of robes and the clinking of jade pendants.

This sound came and went, sometimes silent, then rising again.

Zhou Chang could not locate the source of the sound; his gaze swept through the darkness for a long time before he lowered his eyelids, keeping his eyes still. Just as the rustling noise continued around him without ceasing, Zhou Chang suddenly lifted his eyelids, catching a fleeting glimpse—

His gaze turned toward the darkness that had made the sound, yet he still found nothing.

But in that fleeting instant, his peripheral vision caught sight of a woman in an ancient silk dress, holding a swaddled infant, standing silently beside him.